I am really grossed out at the prospect of having to sit through this piece of crap, but it looks inevitable. Maybe rather than creating a special category for all the vulgar political propaganda that has been thrown at us this year, we could just lump them all into one nomination, for "Films that Brainwashed the Brainless"??

Nine times out of ten, in art as in life, there is no truth to be discovered, only an error to be exposed.--H.L. Menken

I am intimately familiar with Penn Gillette's political leanings. He is also an intelligent guy, quite capable of seeing through the numerous logical errors in Rand's work. Teller, as noted, isn't nearly as politically motivated, and his appearance in this film is puzzling. I can only assume he did it as a favor to somebody?

Originally posted by JoeBacon

Penn and Teller are hard core Libertarians -- Especially Penn.

Nine times out of ten, in art as in life, there is no truth to be discovered, only an error to be exposed.--H.L. Menken

Time for Atlas Shrugged Part II, the worst movie of the year and one of the worst movies ever. I saw it with a free ticket and I STILL feel ripped off! The film impressively manages to be worse than both the first film AND the novel it's based on!

9.) The Sean Hannity cameo: Without a doubt, Sean Hannity is the worst person on Fox News. Bill O'Reilly may be louder, but he's had moments of not-stupidity.* Hannity's never had such moments. In his thankfully brief cameo, Hannity talks about Henry Reardon and acts like you'd expect Sean Hannity to act.

8.) Diedrich Bader: Why was he in this? He plays Quentin Daniels, a scientist that studies the perpetual energy device that they found in the first one. His acting is pretty bad. My theory on why he was in here: Bader's mostly known for Office Space and Office Space director Mike Judge is apparantly a major Libertarian. Maybe Judge seduced Bader into the Libertarian side?

7.) The Richard Halley scene: Richard Halley is a conductor that "goes Galt." Now, you're probably wondering why a conductor is being lumped in with the leaders of industry and there's a reason. A terrible, egotistical reason. See, Ayn Rand wanted to imagine herself as one of the "important" people. To make herself seem important, she had Galt recruit artists. So, the only reason this scene exists is because Rand wanted to be important.

6.) Jason Beghe: Beghe plays Henry Reardon, a steel tycoon who invents a new metal. Beghe can't act to save his life. He makes Grant Bowler, the Reardon from the first one, look like an actual actor.

5.) The special effects: The film startes out in media res with an airplane chase. Yes, really. The four other people in the audience were confused by this too. The planes on screen are horiffic in their badness. Towards the end of the movie, one of Taggart Transcontinental's trains crashes into a military train and there's a massive explosion. The explosion is one of the fakest you'll ever see.

4.) Samantha Mathis: What the Hell happened to her career? Her performance as Dany Taggart is one of the worst female performances of the 21st Century so far. She makes Taylor Schilling look like Meryl Streep.

3.) John Putch: Putch has no talent for directing or visual flair. The film is just drab looking. He can't direct the actors to save his life.

2.) Patrick Fabian: Fabian plays Dagy's brother James. In the first film, were he's played by Matthew Marsden, James was a bland sulker. Here, he's a scenery chewing madman. And Fabian plays him terribly! I kind of wish that Nicolas Cage played him because it might have been interesting in a train-wreck way. Also, it would have guaranteed the film at least one Razzie nod!

1.) The script: There's one person who returned for this one: Brian Patrick O'Toole, one of the film's writers. Joined by a former editor and the writer of several Walker, Texas Rangers episodes, all three manage to make a screenplay written worse than the actual book! In all honesty, this is probably on the five worst screenplays ever, with Batman & Robin, Batlefield Earth, Highlander II, and every Seltzerberg movie (they're all counted together).

One thing the film does better than the book: the train crash. See, after the crash, Rand goes into detail on how each passenger deserved to die. Yes really. Grade: Rotten Asshole.

Character actors can't afford to be picky. He's also been in THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, THE COUNTRY BEARS, EUROTRIP, MISS CONGENIALITY 2, BALLS OF FURY, MEET THE SPARTANS, OPEN SEASON 2 and VAMPIRES SUCK.

It's bad enough that Ayn Rand pretended to be writing about individualism and the supposed "greatness" of the rich and powerful. What's even worse is that she was really writing about her own narcissism and how she wanted to be among the rich and powerful -- without possessing even their often meager talents. It's beyond pale how current Libertarians and Conservatives have twisted what Rand wrote into what is essentially a horrifying justification for social Darwinism. And it's extremely fitting that, when these adherents put this novel up on the screen, their film is as awful as the author, the source material AND their misconceptions.

Please vote the hell out of all the nominations for this movie. I know, I know, this appears to be the year of Breaking Wind, Fart 2 and its sparkling vampires and beefcake werewolves. However, I think we need to make a statement about how crappy this particular film is.

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